As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Servers are a type of information handling system. Although the level of noise generated by servers has generally been reduced over the years, noise pollution remains a big problem in many server environments, especially during certain server operations such as during maintenance modes. The level and severity of server noise also varies between different types of servers. For example, 1U server fans are significantly louder than comparable 2U systems, due to increased rotor count and speeds. System workload, ambient temperature and power/performance policies affect fan speeds. Existing server operational policies include power versus performance optimizations utilizing common control methods such as power capping and CPU, memory and I/O throttling. System thermal control algorithms perform in parallel to enforce the required system cooling.
Recent improvements have been made in remote interface technology to allow server administrators to monitor server performance, including virtual LCDs, virtual LEDs, virtual keyboard-video-mouse (KVM), as well as web GUI improvements that include interactive graphics showing the front and rear physical look of the server system, current inventory/configuration and health status. For example, a server management web GUI has been configured to display graphs of time versus power consumption, efficiency, power to cool, subsystem power for I/O subsystem and power for storage subsystem. Remote administrators have also been provided with the capability of remotely setting power and performance characteristics, such as choosing a performance policy that maximizes system performance level (e.g., using highest system bandwidth, highest system processing frequency, etc.) or choosing power policy that maximizes system performance level without exceeding a given power consumption wattage threshold.
Locally, it is common for administrators in high performance computing and communication (HPCC) environments to gauge if batch jobs are in process based on the noise levels of server internal fans. Servers have also been provided with LCD displays and menus that allow for local configuration of parameters such as network settings and for locally observing parameters such as ambient temperature.